As the child of two history professors I need to add a word of warning about Ancestry and other such sites. Take some of the results with a grain of salt because the results aren't always true. If you have a good idea of who all your most recent ancestors are then all those associations may put it on the right path, but there are lots of people with same names and lots of records so you may be linked to an incorrect ancestor. An example using my family.
In the Ohio Valley around Chillicothe there was more than one John T. Now, we know that our John T. had married Dolly P. and they and their families moved to Indiana. Now the other John T. and his family moved to Oklahoma. While we are distantly related to the Oklahoma Branch, that is not our direct line of ancestors. They all were there pre-Civil War so there are only so many records available. Now, many names were used over and over in the family - such as John, Samuel, Daniel, so there is a greater margin of error for Ancestry to pick the correct one from that point in time. As both John T.'s descended from brothers Jacob and Samuel you might get back to a point where they all join up again, but then again you may also become linked to total strangers. We know a lot about our family because my Dad spent years doing research. Going to courthouses and the Library of Congress to get muster roles, and etc.
